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Tahmina

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The Nix

by Nathan Hill

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Reading for the 2nd time

read in November 2017

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Tahmina said: " A Nix is in Norwegian folklore a spirit who sometimes appears as a white horse and steals children away. In Nathan Hill’s debut novel a Nix is anything you can imagine that you love but one day disappears. Fay Andresen-Anderson is the Nix. She abando A Nix is in Norwegian folklore a spirit who sometimes appears as a white horse and steals children away. In Nathan Hill’s debut novel a Nix is anything you can imagine that you love but one day disappears. Fay Andresen-Anderson is the Nix. She abandons her son Samuel and doesn’t appear for decades.

It’s 2011 and Samuel is an English college professor, novelist and game addict. One day his mother Faye, whom he hasn’t seen for almost two decades, appears on national television for throwing rocks at a governor and presidential candidate. After the incident her name becomes well known everywhere. I must say praise for Hill’s writing skills because a lot of books that I’ve read don’t begin so exciting, but rather boring. Nathan Hill knows how to start a book where you can get the readers’ attention immediately. I also like the fact that he can put humour in some serious passages. My favourite so far was the argument that he had with one of his students, Laura Potsdam. It was one of the times I REALLY laughed and not just smirked while reading a book.

Moving on. When Samuel’s publisher threatens to sue him he tells him that he’ll write a book about his mother, the radical hippie ( as the media portrays her ). When Samuel sees his mother for the first time after so long he tries not to cry. Faye on the other hand keeps a poker face like nothing has happened. As he investigates his mother’s life he starts to learn more about her past as a troubled teenager in Iowa and as a student in Chicago around 1968 where she also got arrested. The chapters in the book are unusual: in one chapter everything is happening in the late summer of 2011, in the next chapter Hill takes the reader to a whole new world of four decades back. At some point I thought it was weird, but then I realized that it was smart because the chapters that take place in the past give a lot of background information. And I’m not joking when I say a lot. Hill is a writer who can perfectly describe a small situation in three pages.

I’m not finished with the book but I must say that it’s worth the time. I’m looking forward to how Samuel’s book about his mother will be and how people will receive it. I’m also wondering if there will be a happy end with his mother Faye or not. ...more "

progress:

(page 285 of 625)
— Nov 20, 2017 01:43PM

Nov 20, 2017 01:43PM · see review